Police: 2 University of Colorado students arrested for feeding pot brownies to classmates, professor

Two Colorado University students are facing multiple felony charges after campus police say they fed marijuana-laced brownies to their unsuspecting classmates and professor. KUSA's Nick McGurk reports.

By NBC News staff

Two University of Colorado students have been arrested for allegedly feeding marijuana-laced brownies to their unsuspecting classmates and professor, police said.

Thomas Ricardo Cunningham, 21, and Mary Elizabeth Essa, 19, baked the pot-laced brownies for the class as part of a "bring food day," the University of Colorado Police Department said in a news release on Sunday. The professor and classmates were unaware that the brownies contained tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, police said.

On Friday morning, officers were called to the Hellems Arts and Sciences Building on the Boulder campus on a report of a professor who was complaining of dizziness and going in and out of consciousness.Paramedics transported her to a hospital.

Later that afternoon, a student's mother notified campus police that her daughter, who had been in the professor's class, was having an anxiety attack and was at a hospital. On Saturday, a second student told police that she felt like she was going to "black out" after the class. Her family took her to the hospital for evaluation.

An investigation revealed that the three hospitalized victims - and five other classmates - were suffering from the effects of marijuana, police said. The three hospitalized victims have since been released.

Cunningham and Essa were interviewed by police on Saturday evening and admitted that the brownies contained marijuana, police said.

They were arrested on suspicion of four felonies: second-degree assault, inducing consumption of controlled substances by fraudulent means, conspiracy to commit second-degree assault and conspiracy to commit inducing consumption of controlled substances by fraudulent means.